Jennifer Jenkinss †The role of Teacher Attitudes and Identity

Jennifer Jenkinss – The role of Teacher Attitudes and Identity Free Online Research Papers As stated in Jennifer Jenkins’s article entitled â€Å"Implementing an International Approach to English Pronunciation: The role of Teacher Attitudes and Identity† published in TESOL QUARTERLY, Vol. 39, No. 3 in September 2005, she carried out a research into the role of nonnative speaker (NNS) teachers’ attitudes and identity toward English accents so as to take a look at the feasibility of an English as a lingua franca (ELF) approach. The only method used in this research is interviewing. All the interviews which followed a pattern of twelve prompt questions were recorded, and discussed under three major themes: Accent Attitudes, Effects of Experiences and Teaching ELF Accents. Jenkins (2005) states that all eight NNES teachers interviewed were ambivalent regarding their attitudes toward their own English accent and their desire for native-like accent. The author goes on to say that every interviewee could recount at least one bad experience in English that had influenced the interviewee’s orientation of English accent. Additionally, she says that most interviewees said they would be happy to teach their students ELF accents whereas three of them showed some contradictions. The author concludes that the feasibility of an ELF needs further research. Despite the fact that Jenkins presents an important discussion of current trends in the TESOL profession and that this article has a logical organisation, there are a number of small, but important, weaknesses in this article. Regarding to the method that Jenkins selected to collect data, the in-depth interview was the only one of her choice. I do think that by conducting interviews that lasted nearly an hour each she could gather lively and useful information of the interviewee’s experiences as well as their knowledge of ELF. I also agree with her when she explained that nearly 60 minutes was â€Å"the exact length being dictated by the participant’s desire to speak† (Jenkins, 2005, p. 535). However, I find some limitations in her method of collecting data. Firstly, only eight NNS teachers were involved in the study, which is not persuasive in terms of quantitative. Secondly, the NNS teachers she interviewed were all females. It must have been more objective to involve both males and females in the research. Additionally, the subjects of her study comprised teachers from only Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Poland and Spain whereas the feasibility of ELF is a worldwide issue. The findings may have been different if more teachers from more different countries had been interviewed. From the evidence and discussion in Accent Attitudes in Findings section, Jenkins concludes that the attachment to the interviewees’ first language that is considered as an extremely important part of who they are â€Å"leads in turnto an inherent ambivalence and hence to the contradictory statements† (Jenkins, 2005, p.542). I find this conclusion rather implausible because of the way she collected the data. As she stated in Method section, all of the participants in her study had a high level of proficiency in English. Some of them had hardly heard of an ELF approach and some were doing research on it. They might have thought that their answers to the questions would reflect their proficiency. And because they were being recorded during the interviews, I wonder if they answered her questions sincerely. The author should have used questionnaires to collect more reliable and persuasive evidence, which may affect her conclusion on their attitudes toward their own English accent and their desire for NS accent. As far as Effects of Experiences is concerned, Jenkins (2005) concludes that past experiences is one of the factor that â€Å"may affect their attitudes to English at the deeper level† and â€Å"may cause them to identify with NSs† (p. 541). In fact, the author failed to see the effects of good experiences when she used question 9 in Interview Prompts (p. 543) asking only about the teachers’ bad experiences to get the evidence. In conclusion, this article is timely in terms of current trends in TESOL. However, the author was not completely successful in making her point because she did not use various methods of collecting data which resulted in certain inconvincible evidence, discussions and conclusions. By interviewing eight NNS female teachers, she did not have a definite conclusion on â€Å"the role of teacher attitudes and identity† in â€Å"implementing an international approach to English Pronunciation† which, according to her, needs further research. Research Papers on Jennifer Jenkins’s - The role of Teacher Attitudes and IdentityStandardized TestingInfluences of Socio-Economic Status of Married MalesEffects of Television Violence on ChildrenThe Relationship Between Delinquency and Drug UseResearch Process Part OnePersonal Experience with Teen PregnancyMoral and Ethical Issues in Hiring New EmployeesAnalysis Of A Cosmetics AdvertisementIncorporating Risk and Uncertainty Factor in CapitalDefinition of Export Quotas

Heres a Wide Pool of Topics for Exploratory Essays

Heres a Wide Pool of Topics for Exploratory Essays Are you struggling to find a good topic for your paper? Choosing or phrasing a topic for an exploratory essay can be a challenging task. You need to have a researchable topic for your paper. Alongside, you need to ensure that you can access good sources of information about it. Probably you have been trying hard to find a good topic for your paper. Worry no more because we are here for your assistance. In this article, we propose good exploratory essay topics related to the themes of health, education, and parenting. Feel free to use our suggested topics for your essays or ask our expert writers to generate a fresh, unique, and customized topic for your paper. How to Decide Interesting Exploratory Essay Topics Finding interesting topics for your paper is not easy. It is a skill that you have to master. Our guidelines will be definitely helpful for you in this regard. To begin with, think about the area you want to select your topic from. The range of fields is literally countless. Some of the fields you can choose the topic from include fitness, engineering, human body, psychology, food, traveling, and education. These are obviously broad categories. If your teacher gives you the leverage to choose topics for exploratory essay of your choice, and you come up with a paper on such broad categories, the teacher is not likely to welcome this approach. The prime reason behind this is that the field is too vast. A one-word topic anyway doesn’t qualify to be selected for a paper. Consider yourself as a reader of the paper rather than a writer for a moment. You’d like to spend time reading a paper that you know what it’s about. Will you care to read a paper titled ‘education’? Sure, you have tons of information about education already. Likewise, your paper’s readers will like to have a clear idea of what the content is about. So the key is to narrow it down. That brings us to the discussion of sub-categories. Talking about education, its sub-categories can be high-school education, college education, coeducation, virtual education, and home tuition. While you are free to choose the sub-category, you still need to identify interesting and at the same time, academically strong topics within your selected sub-category. In this article, we share with you best exploratory essay topics for three areas – health, education, and parenting. We’ll start by identifying sub-categories for each of these areas, and then you can read five topics. Five Best Topics for Paper Writing On Health Health is an outstanding field to select your topic from. That’s because there’s a lot of room for research work in this area. Medical research papers represent a significant proportion of academic articles. Sub-categories for the field of health can be animal rights as subjects of medical testing, sleep, diet, and the aging process. Here are five suitable college exploratory essay topics related to health: Are mobile phones safe for our ears? The workout is beneficial for blood circulation. The demerits of being a vegetarian. How much sleep is too little sleep? How does the aging process start? Five Easy Paper Topics Related to Education Education is one of the best topics to write a paper on. It is the favorite subject of exploration for most teachers. Some of its sub-categories are online education, knowledge, and spiritual education. Find five good topics for an exploratory essay on it below: Coeducation prepares students for professional life challenges. Can we get educated without attending schools? How is online education different from campus studies? Can schools do spiritual counseling of students? What is the minimum education every person should get? Top Five Paper Topic Ideas On Parenting Parenting is a fascinating and important subject for exploration. Its sub-categories include single parenting, blended families, and gay marriages. Here are five interesting topics to write an exploratory essay on: Nuclear family structure is the best for effective parenting. Parents should never scold their children. Gay parents’ children’s understanding of intimacy. Should children be forced to accept the parents’ religion? How parenting changes a person? The Do’s and Don’ts of Exploratory Essay Topics for College Students As you select the topic of your paper, feel free to phrase it as a question or a statement. You might have observed that the topics we have suggested include both questions and statements. While deciding on a topic, the writers should take care of the following things: Make your topic-specific and narrow. Find a topic that discusses the unique aspect of an area. Read the topic at least three times to ensure that it’s easily understandable. Alongside, there are certain things you don’t want to include while writing your topic. We have created a list of them. While thinking your paper’s title: Don’t make the title longer than 70 characters, including spaces. Don’t use difficult vocabulary in your topic. Don’t insert commas in the topic. Still Need Help? You Can Count On Our Guru’s Assistance We’re sure you will find our suggested easy exploratory essay topics interesting. However, it’s possible that you are writing a paper on an area other than the topics we have discussed on. Let’s say you want to select the topic from the field of technology, and you didn’t find topic suggestions for it in this article. No problem! We can help you out. Place your order going through a simple process on our website. We’ll instantly find a writer for you who is qualified in your own field. Our help is instant, so you will get the topic finalized and suggested within your stated deadline. Just let us know your desired area. Rely on us.